On the Beat

The Best Players Still on the Board

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Though the Los Angeles Angels and Miami Marlins have tried their best, the free agent market is not picked clean yet. In fact, one of the prizes of this winter's class remains on the market in first baseman Prince Fielder, or as his agent Scott Boras has taken to calling him, "The PF Flyer."

Somehow it seems odd to equate Fielder to a Flyer regardless of the shared initials. Nonetheless, Fielder is the best player on a market that still includes some other intriguing options for teams still hoping for prices to drop so they can bargain shop as spring training approaches.

Here is a look at the 10 best players left on the market—using Tim Dierkes' ranking of this winter's crop at MLB Trade Rumors—and scouts' views on whether they’re worth a substantial investment.

Free agent: 1B Prince Fielder
Scout's view: "People look at his body and think it's dangerous to give him a long-term contract. I don't buy that. He might not look good in his uniform, but he's strong and durable, and he might have another 50-home-run season in him. He's one of the best power hitters in the game, he's only 28 years old, and he's a good kid. If I had the money and the need, I'd sign him in a heartbeat."

Free agent: RHPEdwin Jackson
Scout's view: "He's a different kind of free agent than you normally see, because you're looking at what he might do rather than what he has done. I know he's bounced around and he's 28, but I really see some upside here. I think he's starting to figure things out. I don't know if I'd go five years on him, but I might gamble with a four-year contract or at least three and an option."

Free agent: RHP Ryan Madson
Scout's view: "The red flag for me is that the Phillies were reportedly gung ho to re-sign him, then suddenly reversed course and signed Jonathan Papelbon to be their closer. Nobody knows players better than their own teams, and it's been a poorly-kept secret for a long time that the Phillies didn't think he had the mental makeup to be a top-flight closer. He pitched well in that role last year, but I'd be hesitant to go past one year on him. I just keep coming back to the Phillies backing off."

Free agent: RHPHirokiKuroda
Scout's view: "I like him a lot, and I'd give him big money on a one-year contract if I knew I was one good starting pitcher from putting my club over the top. He's one of the few pitchers who have come over from Japan and been as good as advertised. In fact, he's been better than advertised. He is really underrated."

Free agent: 1BCarlos Pena
Scout's view: "He can still help someone, but you better have a good right-handed hitter to platoon with him. He's completely helpless against left-handers now, so you can't play him 155-160 games anymore. At this stage of his career, he's a complementary player rather than a major cog in a lineup, and I'd pay him accordingly."

Free agent: RHP Roy Oswalt
Scout's view: "He's willing to take a one-year contract, and that's the only way I would sign him. You wonder how much longer he is going to last because of his back problems. He's still Roy Oswalt, and I wouldn't count him out, but I also wouldn't go crazy to sign him."

Free agent: RHPJavier Vazquez
Scout's view: "I think he's serious when he says he is going to retire, and I'm happy for him. You see so many guys in this game hang on too long, and it ends badly. This story has a good ending."

Free agent: LHP Paul Maholm
Scout's view: "He was asked to be a No. 1 in Pittsburgh, and that just wasn't fair. On a good team, he's a No. 5, maybe a No. 4. I'd take a shot on him for the back end of the rotation. He has a good idea of what he's doing on the mound and makes up for not being overpowering by getting guys to hit the ball on the ground. Put him on the right team in the right park with the stars aligned just right, and he might win you 15 games."

Free agent: RHPBartolo Colon
Scout's view: "The Yankees wrung every lost drop out of him last season, which is a credit to them… He doesn't have anything left. I wouldn't even bring him to camp as a non-roster guy."

Free agent: LHPJeff Francis
Scout's view: "He showed he was healthy last year, but his stuff just isn't very good anymore. His best role is exactly what it was last season with the Royals: serving as an innings-eater on a rebuilding team so it doesn't have to overtax its young starting pitchers."

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Five random thoughts:

I voted for five players on my Hall of Fame ballot: Jeff Bagwell, Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez, Rafael Palmeiro, and Larry Walker. Yes, I know Palmeiro is a drug cheat, but as I have explained many times in the past, I vote with the assumption that everyone who played in the Steroids Era might have done something illegal. There is no way to prove otherwise. Hence, treat all players from that era as equals.

If I were prone to shirking my responsibility and voting on sentiment, I would have checked the box next to Terry Mulholland's name. He wasn't a Hall of Fame player, but he is a Hall of Fame person.

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, longtime Yankees catcher Jorge Posada will be on the ballot in five years now that he is set to announce his retirement later this month. I won't vote for him, though. Then again, I didn't vote for Gary Carter, either, so maybe I have a hidden bias against New York catchers. That's bad news for Josh Thole's Cooperstown bid.

I'd like Albert Pujols to invite me to be a guest in his suite at Angel Stadium just one time during the term of his 10-year contract with the Angels. I've been going to baseball games since 1969 but have never sat in a luxury box. No, wise guy, press boxes are not luxury boxes.

If I could spend an entire season with one team this upcoming season and write a book, it would definitely be the Marlins. Will Hanley Ramirez accept moving to third base following the free agent signing of Jose Reyes? Will Carlos Zambrano have his annual eruption? What might Logan Morrison tweet next? Will Heath Bell set a record for most funny lines in one season? And the best part is that Ozzie Guillen will be running the show, truly a baseball writer/reporter's dream.

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This week's Must Read comes from ESPN.com's Steve Wulf about former Rockies and Tigers catcher Ben Petrick and how he is dealing with Parkinson's Disease. It's very touching and very uplifting.

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As regular readers of this column can tell, we've decided to change some things with On The Beat for 2012.

Many of you have emailed, left comments, or tweeted over the last year saying that you like the Scout's Views section of this column and want more of it. I will endeavor to deliver more of that this season, especially once the exhibition games begin in early March. I also plan to add more views from front office types and players, managers, and coaches, too.

While this isn't intended to give the column the gossipy feel of a supermarket tabloid, it is an attempt to bring the reader inside the major leagues and get a feel for what decision makers, talent evaluators, and those in uniform are thinking.

I have also been asked to share more of my own opinions on the game and will do that, too, as you can see above.

One other new feature will be called “Must Read.” It will be one story I find each week while perusing the Internet that I feel a majority of fans, statistically inclined or not, would enjoy reading. The amount of stories and information available today is amazing, and this is my way of trying to spotlight something from the rest of the crowd.

If you have ideas for any other features, please let me know, and I will consider incorporating them. Feel free to email me, leave a comment, or reach me on Twitter at @jperrotto or on Facebook at facebook.com/johnperrottosportswriter.

Thanks, as always, for taking the time to read, and best wishes for a great 2012.

John Perrotto is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Click here to see John's other articles.
You can contact John by clicking here

Yeah, his numbers tailed off fairly significantly over the last two months, but through about mid-August he was probably the second best pitcher on the Yankees' staff.

Obviously he can't handle more than about 150 innings, but I'd certainly give him at least a non-roster invite. Why not see if some team can get similar value out of him next year, or at least put him in a relief role, where his work can be limited and he can add a couple of MPH to what was already a pretty solid four-seamer.

John, I have to say I am shocked that Tim Raines is not on your HOF ballot. What is it about Raines that the BBWAA crowd does not like? His traditional numbers (5th all time in SB), make him look like a 1st year ballot guy. Is there some sort of inside baseball transgression that we don't know about? If it is the cocaine use, then the electorate is not being consistent (Paul Molitor). If it is not being Rickey Henderson, they are setting the bar for leadoff hitters impossiby too high.

Agree with all the commentary about you being one of the best here, but WHAT IS UP WITH TIM RAINES? At the time, he was obviously one of the 2-3 best players in baseball. I am really dumbfounded by this; Raines is, quite frankly, a better candidate than Larkin.

Not that BP needs to be the Borg and have groupthink and all that, but if a BP writer cannot look at the very clear data that indicates Raines is an absolute no-doubt-about-it HOFer, I cannot trust that author's judgment on a wider variety of baseball-related topics.

I think it was the Sheehan pieces that used to give a biweekly hottest pitching matchups. I enjoyed that, even if the information is somewhat easy to glance over oneself, and would like to see something like that expanded. Perhaps narrow it to just a single game's matchup rather than the series and a little more depth on recent performance, etc. Just a thought.

I, too, love the scout's view section. I truly don't feel more "opinion" input from reputable baseball sources such scout's, GM's, players, yourself, etc... will make it gossipy. I can't stand gossip to the point that I spend my lunch (like now) hunkered down at my desk be myself reading sports and I love the scout's view. If you treat it as what it is, 'One mans opinion', I feel it a good read. Thanks for for being flexible and creative in response your readers as well. Great stuff all around...

Nothing new to add other than I strongly disagree with your decision to leave Tim Raines off of your HoF ballot. Frankly, I'd like to see someone write an article trying to convince me (well, us) that he does not deserve to be in Cooperstown.

Thanks so much for all the suggestions. Raines is a guy I think about every year. I don't automatically dismiss him, by any means. And it's not that I would never vote for him. I certainly have the right to change my mind and the support Raines has drawn just in this comments will certainly force me to think it over again come December.

As Jayson Stark put it, people on PEDs are going to clutter up the ballot for years because the voting will get so split up over the PED issue. I think this might have been Raines's best shot and it may take another 4-5 years for him to get in.

Thanks for the post, but, I am a little confused by it. This Raines thing is not a new topic here:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9883

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=12667

For the the record, you were no for Raines in 2010, yes for Raines in 2011, and no again in 2012. Your ballot for 2010 drew quite a bit of activity in the comments section. You just posted that "And it's not that I would never vote for him." That sounds like you have not yet voted for him, when you stated a year ago that you did.

I've been more conflicted on Raines more than any player on the ballot during my 15 years as a voter. It's hard to fully explain in this forum. Voting for the HofF is one of the most difficult things I do each year. I don't take it lightly and neither do any of my brethren. It is something I definitely will address in greater detail in next Monday's OTB.

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" I vote with the assumption that everyone who played in the Steroids Era might have done something illegal. "

With all due respect for your excellent reporting, clear directly writing style, and your candor, that is a sad cop-out. Sorry, but if you have the privilege of voting on the Hall of Fame members, it is your duty to obtain as much understanding as possible on who cheated how significantly and vote accordingly. Even if it ends up being fairly speculative, you have to vote on the best information available. That is much more fair than painting all steroids era players with the same fat black brush.

"...it is your duty to obtain as much understanding as possible on who cheated how significantly and vote accordingly."

You're making an assumption that he hasn't. I'm probably safer in assuming that he HAS obtained as much understanding as he could and has decided that the whole thing was a big stinking mess, that he would rather purposefully vote for somebody that he knows used PED's and use the same criteria across the board for everybody than NOT vote for those people, but instead accidentally vote in a PED user who just hasn't gotten caught yet.

Whether you know the guy is a user or not, if you exclude the guys you know about, it's still a double standard if an uncaught PED user gets into the hall.

There is a difference between taking someone's life and either jailing them or keeping them out of the Hall of Fame. Both of the latter are correctable to some degree.

Look, I understand the evidence one way or another may or may not be particularly strong. The problem, perhaps, is - and I don't blame John - HoF voters have to fear law suits from players excluded based on flimsy evidence. It may too hard to explain why a player is excluded when he may obviously otherwise deserve a spot without mentioning the PED issue.

No, not putting guys in the Hall of Fame is correctable - not putting guys in the Hall of Fame is the punishment for alleged PED use just as putting people in jail is the punishmet for their crime.

Well, there might be a lawsuit case if a writer refused to because of his suspecting a player's steroid use. I don't know; writers have to be very careful about making unsubstantiated claims, don't they? The question is how much substantiation do they need to make an in or out judgement on the Hall of Fame.

Another question is weighing how much a player should be penalized for PED use. Ideally voters should look at all the various shades of gray: how far did he go with it? how much did it help him? how strong is the evidence against him? how immoral was it in the context of his time, the sacrifices they were expected to make for their craft, and what players could have been expected to know? I actually do think players taking speed in the 60s and 70s should have been dinged to a degree. Heavy steroid use should probably be dinged to a greater degree, but I'd still probably vote for A-Rod, Clemens, and Barry Bonds to eventually go in. Palmeiro - I'm not so sure.

The voting "rules" for the Hall of Fame are as amorphous as the MVP awards. Technically, voters don't even have to judge on statistics and each voter can admit or dismiss based on any criteria, whether quantitative (stats) or qualitative (character) that they want. Thus, refusing to vote for a player, even if the writer publicizes the reasons behind the vote, is not grounds for a lawsuit in itself. Now, perhaps what the writer writes about their reasons might be grounds for slander but the lawsuit would be over the slander itself and not the vote. I'm sure Bonds could have sued half a legion of writers by now, for example, and he hasn't.

I do think you should admit that you're grasping at straws on the theory that players have threatened to sue BBWAA voters... I think it's a stretch to even think they would have some legal basis to sue BBWAA voters. The only "intimidation" possible is that players might refuse to give interviews to voters who didn't vote for them... But you are really reaching with that line of thinking.. so I suggest you either provide a link with some evidence of a previous suit or admit you're wrong. If you find a link, I'll be more than happy to admit I am wrong (which I have done before).

Jeez, it was just a thought to try to justify John's vote for Palmeiro. OK, you are probably right that John wasn't worried about slander. We'll just take his reasoning at face value then, which is sadly faulty.

It was an ill-conceived thought. You just can't make up reasons for why people do what they do without some kind of evidence. I think Raines should be in the Hall of Fame but I can discuss it with John within the context and content of what he writes about and without making unjustified assumptions.

I had some evidence. Perhaps, not very good evidence, but the thought didn't come from nothing. My house insurance goes up if I write from home as a professional writer. Journalists in particular, as I understand, do have to worry about slander. I have heard of newspapers getting sued and losing (although, I know they usually win) for slander, even though they were later proven to be correct. (I can't remember the specific example.) My point was that the fear of a suit over not the vote, but the written justification of the vote, might have been the reason John didn't want to worry about who did what concerning PEDs. You made a good case that this was not likely something that he would have worried about. Fine. I'll take your word on it for I am not a libel expert. However, there is nothing wrong with speculating what someone else might have been thinking as long as it is understood that it is just speculation.

Um, you never made that point about voters fearing they will be sued over their justification. I said that might be the only possible grounds but even at that, it would be a stretch.

And yes, you have no evidence. I still haven't seen a link suggesting that a HOF voter was in any way subjected to a lawsuit based on their vote, or even, for slander based on the reasoning behind the vote.

And yes, there is something wrong with unfounded speculation about what a person is thinking and why they are thinking that. There's something wrong with unfounded speculation in general, whether it's a Muslim praying on a plane that makes Americans think they are a terrorist to a defendant in court using the Fifth Amendment and everyone assuming it means they are guilty. Unfounded speculation may be, in part, a reason why Bagwell is not in the Hall of Fame.

You're an articulate person so I'm trying to give you credit for understanding that it is wrong to make assumptions on why people do what they do without evidence.

Yes, I did make that point - or rather was trying to the very first time I brought it up, but obviously not clearly enough: "It may be too hard to explain . . ."

OK, we disagree on what is evidence. My definition is a bit broader than yours.

There you go again taking my point and putting it in an inappropriate context. I'm not speculating about a terrorist, although, if anyone goes to a flight school and without a reasonable explanation isn't interested in learning how to land a plane, perhaps, we should be more alarmed and try to deduce what they might be thinking. Perhaps, the physique of Jeff Bagwell is damning enough to voters who have studied the effects of steroids + intense baseball training to exclude him from the Hall of Fame for a few years. I am not claiming that, however. I was just speculating on what a sportswriter who I very much care about might have been thinking, but not willing to say. And I wasn't advocating that any action should be taken against him. I was just trying to have a thoughtful discussion on Hall of Fame voting.

Thank you, Richard, I like your comments - and I think you liked my comments from my previous BP name, which I changed because I believe that I must have irritated somebody so much that all my comments were getting automatically dinged. Well, there I go again speculating on what somebody else is thinking without much evidence. However, I haven't been getting my comments dinged nearly as much since I changed my name. I will agree with your last sentence under some circumstances, but I don't believe it is unwise in all cases.

I know this is a long shot, because I dimly recall that you are not interested in fantasy leagues, Richard, but the best of them is Scoresheet Baseball (http://www.scoresheet.com/). For only $79 you get a game where you make batting line-ups, set-up your rotation, bullpen, and bench of the players you drafted or traded for. A computer plays out a 162 game schedule over the season using the actual stats of your players adjusted by your opponent's players - and, if you wish, you can view those results batter by batter or all in one scoresheet. One team in our league is looking for a new owner - a team with Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano, and Daniel Hudson in an A.L. only league, where you can keep 13 veterans (including 2 who may have crossed over to the N.L.) and unlimited prospects from one season to the next. The guys in our league are all very nice, good humored, and pretty darn smart. We all happen to live in Canada, because there used to be a Scoresheet Canada, but the league is now open to anyone. Two of us are actually U.S. ex-pats. The league is going into its 21st year and I have kept track of pages of records and send periodic e-mails pointing out interesting developments in our league. The drafts are conducted by web and it is beautifully convenient no matter how busy you are. There are three drafts of 7 or 8 players during the winter/early spring and 5 more of two players each during the season. Are you game to give it a try?

I actually like fantasy leagues and I've played Scoresheet once before as well as quite a few other formats. I really liked Scoresheet. I'm not sure why you thought I didn't like fantasy baseball, it's just that I thought BP's fantasy baseball coverage was pretty poor for a long time.

RAWagman knows how to get a hold of me via twitter. Let me know what the deadlines are.

Ya-hoo! RAWagman is in our league. I've e-mailed him.
Jan. 24: player lists come out
Feb. 3: keeper lists will be due
Feb. 12: draft begins - 7 rounds taking a few days
We'll draft more in early March, then again 3 weeks later.
I don't think there will be a problem if you sign up any time before the keeper lists are due - but the sooner the better. That would give you more time to make trades beforehand and it would put an end to my pursuit of recruiting Geddy Lee for our league.

Here we go with the PED back-and-forth. I hope all those who dismiss anyone who used steroids or HGH in the 1990s/2000s have an equally good explanation for why Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Joe Morgan, Gaylord Perry, et al. should be in the Hall, given their admitted use of greenies, reds, uppers, etc., (and in Perry's case, doctoring the baseball).

I realize this may come across as condescending, and I really don't mean it to, but if drug use is cheating, I don't see the distinction between today's users and those of yesteryear.

I've read very similar thoughts on Madson from other baseball insiders as well. MY own personal observation was that he could not handle the closer role (based on his performance prior to 2011). Great stats otherwise, but a choker when closing.

At the end of the day, he proved he can not only handle the closer role but dominate. JMHO, but he was the best closer available on the market this year via trade or free agency.

the phillies offered madson 4yrs/44 million. boras wanted 5years. they then went to plan b. another boras botch job. the phils and other clubs give him a very short leash and you wouyld think players ought to think twice about going with him. madson won't see that contract from any other teams he'll have to go for a one year deal and try again. i don't think there is any doubt that he showed himself to be quite up to the task of closing and i feel that his repotoire is tremendous because if his killer change-up to go with his very good hard stuff. we'll miss him. a good guy.